Configurator using structure and rules to provide a user interface

ABSTRACT

A configurator using structure and rules to provide a user interface. According to one embodiment of the invention, a customizable product class is created. The customizable product class includes a set of one or more attributes to define the customizable product class. A component product class is added to the customizable product class, where the component product class is a subclass of the customizable product. A customizable class rule is associated to the customizable product class, the customizable class rule including expressions which provide conditions on component products added to the customizable product. A customizable UI is mapped to the customizable product class, where the customizable UI provides access structure to the configurator.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/945,450, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,650,296, filed Aug. 31, 2001.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to the field of computing. More specifically, theinvention relates to the generation of and provisioning of customizableproducts.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The Internet has provided new opportunities for most companies toadvertise and sell products to a multitude of consumers, however,companies that sell complex or customizable products still facesignificant challenges. Customizable products are products that are madeup of other products or component products. Component products typicallycomplement each other in creating the customizable product, potentiallyallowing consumers to receive discounted pricing when the components arepurchased as a group.

Computer companies, for example, may sell disk drives and monitors aswell as other types of computer components. These companies may alsogroup computer components together to form computer systems atdiscounted prices. Customers who want to buy a computer system canselect among several alternatives for each component. For example, thecompany may provide three monitors for the customer to choose from whenbuying a desktop computer. As the number of components making up thecustomizable product increase, the more complex the decision makingprocess is for the consumer to determine which components to select.

Most businesses are supported by attentive sales professionals who helpthe customer select the product, or combination of products, that bestmeet their specific requirements. Buying and selling over the Internetis more problematic because an expert sales professionals is notavailable to guide customers to choose the right product. Providingonline access to product information for each sub-component without anexplanation of how the components interrelate is not enough. Customerloyalty can be very fleeting in today's highly competitive onlineenvironment and frustrated customers can easily look for alternatives ata competitor's web site. Preferably, businesses utilize, fullyintegrated processes and systems that can handle consultative selling,intricate configurations, and complicated product relationships andoptions.

To achieve this, organizations in all industries are increasingly usingproduct and service configurators. A configurator is a software tooldeveloped by the product or service provider, that allows customers tofind the products that suit their unique requirements. In some cases,configurators are integrated with a set of business rules that helpguide the customer as would a sales professional.

Today, however, configurators are simply point products that do notfully address the needs of organizations with complex, multichannelsales environments, and application integration requirements. Theseconfigurators often use complex procedural programming based modelingtools, to define product relationships and business rules, that aredifficult to use, costly to maintain, and hard to upgrade.

These configurators are treated essentially as big shopping cartscontaining a bunch of pre-defined “bags”, one for every possiblecomponent product. Consequently, the supported configuration rules onlyprovide constraints to the total amounts of each component product to beadded. Therefore, there are many configurators with configuration rulesemantics which cannot be implemented well in such a weakly structuredframework.

For example, suppose a configurator consists of computers and powersupplies, where every computer must have a power supply. And furthersuppose that US computers require 110V power supplies while Europeancomputers require 220V power supplies. Here, current configurators havedifficulty correctly modeling, for instance, an order having twocomputer systems, one for each locale. If a configuration rule denotesthat mismatched computers and power supplies must exclude each other,then neither of the desired computer systems may be placed together inthe same order. Yet if such a configuration rule did not exist then itwould incorrectly allow configuring incompatible single systems. This isultimately because the products are just “bagged together.”

Another problem with procedural programming based configurators is thelag-time taken in making changes to the configurator. Configurators arenormally designed and modeled with the help of an expert for the productbeing sold. Configuration experts, such as a sales professional or aproduct manager, explain to the software designer, the relationshipsbetween the component products in making the customizable product.Software engineers then program the software to present the products tothe customer.

In many cases, the updating of a configurator consists of the softwareengineer(s) receiving the requested configurator changes from variousconfiguration experts. The software engineer then reprograms the newcomponents and/or configuration rules into the proceduralprogramming-oriented source code of the configurator software.Therefore, there is usually a significant lag-time between a requestedchange to the configurator business model, and the time the softwareengineer reprograms the software.

Significant programming lag-time results in inaccessible and inaccurateinformation that extends sales cycles, increases the percentage ofinaccurate quotes and orders, raises costs due to a greater number ofreturned items, and delays the timing in bringing new products tomarket. These inefficient and unreliable configurators often result inlost revenues and dissatisfied customers. As the rate of newcustomizable and component products increases these problemsproliferate.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention may best be understood by referring to the followingdescription and accompanying drawings that are used to illustrateembodiments of the invention. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 illustrate a block diagram of the modeling of an object orientedconfigurator according to one embodiment.

FIG. 2 illustrates a class hierarchy with defined attributes for acustomizable product according to one embodiment.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary class hierarchy including portattributes according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4 illustrates several combinations for setting cardinalityaccording to one embodiment.

FIG. 5 illustrates the customizable UI class hierarchy according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of the creation of a UI for usingdefined customizable class structures according to one embodiment.

FIG. 7 illustrates a data store for various components of theconfigurator according to an embodiment.

FIG. 8 illustrates a medium or media useful for an embodiment of aprocess to generate a customizable product configurator.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

A method and apparatus to generate a customizable product configuratoris described. In the following description, numerous specific detailsare set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the invention.However, it will be understood that the invention may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-known circuits,structures and techniques have not been shown in detail in order not toobscure the invention.

The techniques shown in the figures can be implemented using code anddata stored and executed on a computer. Such computers store and/orcommunicate (internally and with other network elements over thenetwork) code and/or data using machine-readable media, such as magneticdisks; optical disks; random access memory; read only memory; flashmemory devices; electrical, optical, acoustical or other form ofpropagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, lasers,digital signals, etc.); etc. Of course, one or more parts of theinvention may be implemented using any combination of software,firmware, and/or hardware.

In one embodiment, the customizable product configurator is derived froman object oriented class hierarchy by a relational set of customizableand component classes (e.g. products or services) as will be furtherdescribed. In one embodiment, the customizable product class includesattributes that defines the base structure of the customizable product.Component products, customizable class rules, and customizable userinterface (UI) classes may be modeled as subclasses to, and inheritattributes from, the customizable product class. An instance of acustomizable object may be generated from these classes when a consumerbuilds an instance of a customizable product.

In one embodiment, the configurator process is separated into twodistinct sessions, the modeling session and runtime session. During themodeling session, a configuration expert (e.g. sales professional orproduct manager) designs the configurator. FIG. 1 illustrates a blockdiagram of the modeling of an object oriented configurator according toone embodiment of the invention. At block 110, a new customizableproduct is created with defined attributes and control passes to block120. At block 120, the new customizable product is assigned to a classand control passes to block 130. This becomes the parent class in thecustomizable product class hierarchy.

At block 130, component products are added to the customizable productclass and control passes to block 140. The component products aresubclasses and inherit the attributes of the customizable product class.At block 140, customizable rules are added to the customizable productclass structure and control passes to block 150. Here, the customizablerule may be designed by configuration experts, defining conditions andtriggering actions between the component products that ensure theconsumers purchase the optimal solution that meets their needs.

At block 150, the customizable UI is mapped to the customizable productclass structure, thereby allowing the configuration expert to tailor theuser interface of component products to the customizable product.Finally, at block 160, the configurator is released to a runtimesession, allowing a consumer to build a customizable product.

As will be appreciated, the object oriented nature of the modelingsession, such as the inheritance of class attributes and rules, lessensthe complexity of building the configurator, allows for a configurationexpert to make necessary changes to the configurator, and reduce the lagtime from modeling to runtime.

During the runtime session, a consumer (e.g. one wanting to build acustomizable product) accesses the configurator designed by theconfiguration expert to build a customized product or service. In oneembodiment, the building of a customizable product is performed by theconsumer through the UI designed for the specific customizable productclass selected by the consumer. Upon, selecting specific componentproducts or groups of component products to the customizable productclass, other component products may be automatically added or restricteddue to the rules defined, as will be further described. In oneembodiment, a sales professional may also access the runtimeconfigurator to help a consumer find the right product for their needs.In this way, the configuration expert has the most up-to-date productsand quote list to design a customizable product.

Although the following will be described in relation to products (e.g.customizable products, component products, etc.), it should beunderstood that the customizable product configurator described is notlimited to only products and may be used to customize other instances(e.g. services). In addition, alternative embodiments of theconfigurator may also comprise any number of various types of productsor services such as literature and contracts, and is not limited tothose examples described herein.

In one embodiment, the customizable product configurator is generatedfrom customizable product classes and subclasses that are organized intothe customizable product hierarchies. The customizable product classesdefined during the model session may represent any number of instances(e.g. a computer system instance, a car instance, for example) or typesof instances (e.g. Model X computer system, Model Y computer system, forexample). In one embodiment, when a customizable product class isdesigned, the customizable product class name attribute is unique andthe customizable product class name is added to a set of availablecustomizable classes. Thereafter, all of the associated componentproducts, customizable class rules, and customizable UIs designed becomesubclasses to the customizable product class.

FIG. 2 illustrates a class hierarchy with defined attributes for acustomizable product according to one embodiment. Here, the customizableproduct classes are modeled as PCs 210 with attribute Cabinet 212, Cards220 with attribute Size 222, HD 230, and Cables 240 with attribute Color242.

The PCs 210 has a component product subclasses defined as Fast PCs 250with attributes Memory 252 and Cabinet 254. The Cards 220 have twocomponent product subclasses defined as Video Cards 260 and Sound Cards270. The Video Card 260 has attribute Size 262 and Sound Cards 270 hasattributes Surround 272 and Size 274. The HD 230 has a component productsubclass defined as SCSI 280 with a defined attribute RPM 282.

Typically, a class hierarchy consists of classes and subclasses.Subclasses are classes that are defined within another class. Forexample, in FIG. 2, Video Cards 260 and Sound cards 270 are subclassesof the customizable product class Cards 220 which would inversely be theparent class of Video Cards 260 and Sound cards 270. Subclasses alwayshave a parent class and classes can be nested to as many levels asneeded. In one embodiment, the classification scheme used for setting upa customizable product class hierarchy depends on the product line, thebusiness processes, and the marketing and selling to be customized. Forexample, one could create a customizable product class called diskdrives that contains all the disk drives in a product line. The keycharacteristic of a component product class is that membership isspecies-based. All the members are the same species. For example, allthe members of class HD 230 are disk drives.

In one embodiment, component product classes are the related productsassociated to a customizable product class. That is, component productsmake the customizable product customizable. A component product classmay be added to the customizable product class one at a time, or as agroup. For example, a car may be defined as a customizable product classhaving a car tire defined as a component product class. The car tire maybe added one at a time, or a group of four tires may be added at once.

Similarly, in one embodiment, a component product class may also includeother customizable products. In this way, a customizable product is asub-assembly that is included as a component product in a finalcustomizable product. For example, assume that a configurable powersupply and a configurable gearbox are sold as part of an industriallathe. One customizable product may be created for configuring the powersupply and one for configuring the gearbox. Then both of these componentcustomizable products may be added to the industrial lathe customizableproduct as subclasses.

In one embodiment, when a component product class is defined as asubclass, of a specified parent class (e.g. customizable product classor other component product class) the parent class is defined within theparent class attribute of the subclass. When a component product classis added to a customizable product class hierarchy, it automaticallyinherits all the attributes of the parent class or classes. Customizableproduct classes let you define what attributes are maintained forcomponent product classes, propagate those attributes to the componentproduct classes, and maintain those attributes in a consistent fashion.

Each customizable product class is associated with a collection ofattributes during modeling. Attributes are the defined types ofinformation to be captured and maintained about the customizable productclasses and subclasses, and the component product classes andsubclasses. In one embodiment, each attribute has a name or identifier,a data type, and a value from a specified domain or range.

When an attribute for a customizable product class or subclass isdefined, the attribute is inherited by all its member component productclasses and all member subclasses. In one embodiment, attributes aredefined at the customizable product class level but not at the componentproduct class level. For example, in FIG. 2, the Fast PCs componentproduct subclass has defined attribute Cabinet 254 which is inheritedfrom the attribute Cabinet 212 in the parent class PCs 210.

Defining attributes at the customizable product class or subclass levelallows the creation and management of attributes for a plurality ofcomponent objects to be more efficient. Also, the customizable productclasses provide a central location for propagating attributes tocomponent products and shuffling attributes between customizable productclasses during the building and revising of the class hierarchy.

It will be appreciated, however, that attributes need not only bedefined at the customizable product class level, and in alternativeembodiments attributes may also be defined at the component class level.In one embodiment, when an attribute is defined at the component classlevel, the attribute is static and does not inherit from its parentclass. Here for example, in FIG. 2, the value stored in the attributeCabinet 254 of the subclass Fast PCs 250 would be different from thevalue stored in attribute 212 of the parent class PCs 210.

Also, the Memory 252 attribute defined only for the subclass Fast PCs250 is another example of an attribute defined solely for the subclassand not the parent class. When a new attribute is explicitly defined fora customizable or component product subclass, it is said to “shadow” theinherited attribute.

In one embodiment, each customizable product class is associated with apredefined set of attribute-value pairs. The value of the attribute isassigned at the component product class object level. The predefined setof attribute-value pairs store the run-time session data about thatcustomizable product class and its relationship to other customizableproduct classes. Therefore, values of attributes may vary from componentproduct class to component product class in the customizable productclass.

In one embodiment, attribute data types include: Numbers, Integer,Floating-point, Enumeration, String, Date, Time, Currency, Phone,Boolean, etc. In one embodiment, attributes whose values arequantitative have an associated data type. That is, only quantities of aspecific data type appears as the value of an attribute. The value ofthe attribute may also be for a quantity (of various data types) or agroup consisting of a group of component product classes within thecustomizable product class. Attributes whose values are groups ofcomponent product classes are called ports as will be further describedbelow.

In one embodiment, a domain of allowable values for an attribute may bedefined. Attributes can have three types of domains: a single value, alist of values, or a range of values for an attribute. For example, anattribute called Color could have the domain red, green, blue. In oneembodiment, a default value of the attribute may be defined.

Attributes can be further classified in various ways. In one embodiment,attributes are divided into fixed and dynamic attributes. Fixedattributes' values are completely determined within the modelingsession, while dynamic attributes' values are determined during theruntime session.

In one embodiment, the component product classes may be grouped togetherinto a list of component products or ports. All component productclasses contained in a port are of the same type. The port can becharacterized by the number of component products it contains. Portattributes, whose values are groups of component product classes, aretyped with a customizable product class. Only component product classesthat are a subclass of a customizable product class may appear in thegroup of values for that attribute.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary class hierarchy including portattributes according to one embodiment of the invention. FIG. 3 containsthe Fast PCs 310 component product which is a subclass of My PC 305 withthe defined attributes of Memory 319 and Cabinet 322. Two ports, PCISlots 311 and HD Bays 315 are also included. Here, the PCI Slots 311 andHD Bays 315 represent that the Fast PCs 310 may be customized withmultiple PCI Slots and Hard Drive Bays. The attributes of these portsalso describe the cardinality (elements 312 and 316), the domain values(elements 313 and 317) type of component products types which may beassociated with the port, and the default domain value (elements 314 and318). Here, the cardinality value 312 defines that the PCI Slots 311 mayhave 0 to 2 of the domain value 313 defined as cards installed with nodefault domain value 314 defined. The cardinality value 316 defines thatthe HD Bays 315 may have 1 to 4 of the domain value 316 defined as SCSIhard drives installed with the default domain value 318 defined to be 10Gig. Further description of the use of cardinality is described below.The attribute Memory 319 has domain values 320 defined as 128 and 256,with the default value 321 defined as 256. The attribute Cabinet 322 hasthe domain value 323 defined as DT or MT, with the default value 324defined as MT.

FIG. 3 also describes the types of cards which may be installed in thePCI slots. Here, Video Cards 342 are a subclass of class 3D 340 cardsand Sound Cards 352 are a subclass of class Super Sound 350. Both VideoCards 342 and Sound Cards 352 are ports of cards which may be installedin the PCI slots. The Video Cards 342 also has defined another portCable 343 and an attribute Size 347. The attribute Size 347 has thedomain values 348 defined as short or long, with the default value 349defined as short.

The Sound Cards 352 subclass has the attributes Size 353 and Surround356 defined. Size 353 has the domain values 354 defined as short orlong, with the default value 355 defined as short. Surround 356 (e.g.surround sound) has the domain value 357 defined as yes or no, with thedefault value 358 defined as yes.

As described above, the port Cable 343 contains attributes whichdescribe the types of component product classes which may be associatedwith the port. Here, the Cardinality 344 is defined to include one ofthe domain value 345 defined as cables. Here, the default value 346 isdefined to the port Video 380. The port Cable 343 is then associatedwith the Cables 382 subclass of Video 380, which contains the attributeColor 383 having the domain values 384 defined as red and green, withdefault value 385 defined as red.

Returning to the description of the HD Bays 315, the port includes aSCSI 362 subclass to 10 Gig 360 with the attribute RPM 363 defined andSCSI 372 subclass to 20 Gig 370 with the attribute RPM 373 defined. Bothattributes RPM 363 and RPM 373 have domain values 364 and domain values374 defined as 4500 and 7200, with both default value 365 and defaultvalue 375 defined as 7200.

In one embodiment, ports are generally inclusive by default, but alsomay be defined as exclusive, which means that any component productclass which appears in that port will not appear in the ports of anyother component product class object (however it may appear in otherports of that same component product class).

Pairs of port properties can also be defined as inverses. A port whichis one of the attributes of an inverse pair will only contain componentproduct classes which possess the other attribute in that pair. Forexample: if Husband and Wife are defined to be inverse properties andif, for instance, John's Wife is Mary then Mary's Husband is John.

It should be understood that inverse properties can be one-to-one, as inthe example above, or they can be many-to-one, one-to-many ormany-to-many. No matter how many classes are involved, an inverse portessentially defines just two sets of component product classes, suchthat each set appears as the value of the corresponding attribute forevery member of the other set. For a many-to-many example: Sellers andBuyers might be defined as inverses. Then each Seller would have accessto the common group of Buyers, and each Buyer would have access to thecommon group of Sellers. In one embodiment, the ports in an inverseproperty pair can each be independently defined as either inclusive orexclusive.

For a one-to-many example with both inclusive and exclusive ports, thewheels port of a car should be exclusive, so that the four wheels belongto just a single car, but the car port of each wheel would need to beinclusive, so that all the wheels could be attached to the same car.

In one embodiment, ports have cardinality. When a port is defined aminimum, maximum, and default cardinality may be specified. Cardinalityrefers to the quantity of the component product class a consumer canselect from a port during the runtime session. For example, assume aport called Hard Drives is defined. It contains a 20 GB drive and a 30GB drive. If the minimum cardinality is set to 2, the consumer must pick2 items from this port. The consumer can do this in any of the followingways: Pick one 20 GB drive and one 30 GB drive; Pick two 20 GB drives;or Pick two 30 GB drives.

In one embodiment, there are three types of cardinality: minimum,maximum and default. FIG. 4 illustrates several combinations for settingcardinality according to one embodiment of the invention. The figuredescribes what will be displayed initially to the consumer in theconfigurator and the actions the consumer may perform according to oneembodiment. N is the quantity of the default component product class inthe configurator. In all the cases where the minimum cardinality isgreater than 0, the consumer may substitute other component products forthe default product.

The minimum cardinality governs whether or not selecting componentproduct classes from the instance port is optional or is required. Ifthe minimum cardinality is set to 0, selecting component product classesis optional. If the minimum cardinality is set greater than 0, theselected number of component product classes from the port must beselected.

The maximum cardinality sets the maximum number of component productclasses that the user can select from a port during the runtime session.If the minimum cardinality is set greater than zero, the maximumcardinality must be set to a number at least as large.

The default cardinality specifies what quantity of the default componentproduct class is automatically added to the initial configuration duringthe runtime session. In one embodiment, default cardinality must beequal to or greater than the minimum cardinality and must be less thanor equal to the maximum cardinality.

In one embodiment, a component product class includes a collection ofexpressions, called the customizable class rules. The customizable classrules define constraints on component products. It is through thecustomizable class rules that the configuration expert helps guide theconsumer to choose the appropriate product(s) for their needs. Here, thecustomizable class rules may be defined to require or exclude theselection of one or more component products upon the selection of aspecific component product, or the customizable class rule may triggerthe prompting of recommendations messages when a particular componentproduct is selected. For example, a customizable class rule may becreated that requires a specific monitor card when a specific type ofmonitor is selected during the runtime session by a consumer. In oneembodiment, the required monitor card is automatically added to theruntime session of the configurator when the consumer selects thatmonitor.

In one embodiment, customizable class rules are inherited, but unlikeattributes, the collection of customizable class rules are not named anddo not shadow. However, it should be understood that in some embodimentscustomizable class rules may be named and/or may be shadowed. If acomponent product class adds new customizable class rules they simply“accumulate” downwards in the class hierarchy. A subclass possesses allthe customizable class rules of its parent class, plus any newcustomizable class rules added by that subclass.

As stated above, the customizable class rule has a collection ofexpressions. In one embodiment, an expression is a template composed ofproperty paths and constants that are combined together with operators.Expressions can be evaluated to implement customizable class rulesconstraints during the runtime session. Each evaluation is performed insome particular context, which resolves the meaning of any freereferences made in the expression. The nature of the constraintsproduced by an expression depend on the environment in which theexpression is evaluated.

In one embodiment, configuration experts build customizable class rulesby natural language templates. Here, templates are fill-in-the-blanknatural language sentences that configuration experts complete usingrule builder tools. Their purpose is to completely shield theconfiguration experts from customizable class rule assembly languagewhich may need to be modified by a software engineer. The naturallanguage template may use easy to understand and fullyinternationalizable natural language sentences that an configurationexpert may implement. Some examples of template expressions are:

“Component Product 1 requires Component Product 2”

“Make sure that the quantity of a component product is less than anumber”

“If the customer picks more than 50 of a component product, then includethe Good Customer Bonus Pack for free”

“Add the quantities of one component product and another componentproduct and then subtract the total from the quantity of a thirdcomponent product”

“Sum of a number and a number”

“Product of a number and the absolute value of a number”

Configuration experts may select a natural language template and thenfill in the blanks with defined classes and attributes (e.g. componentclasses and attributes), math expressions, or other templates. Then, thenatural language customizable class rules are converted into a low-levelrule assembly language. Here, a combination of math expression buildersand natural language phrase builders may be used to let configurationexperts create complex rules with minimal typing.

In one embodiment, batch customizable class rules may be used, whichallow configuration experts to enter lists of values to fill in theblanks of any template in one step. Batch rules are particularly usefulfor creating large numbers of rules for a single component productclass. Also, predicate-based customizable class rules design may beused, allowing configuration experts to build large customizable classrule sentences by combining condition and action phrases. For example,“If a user picks Computer X And configurator contains 3 of SoftwareTitles And Account Type==“Good Customer” Then autopick free upgrade Andautopick promo mousepad Except when attribute Shipping destination isTexas”.

It should be understood that although various rule builder have beendescribed the invention is not limited to any type of rule builderwhether using natural language or low-level rule assembly language. Inone embodiment, all templates and translations are defined in thedatabase. This way, configuration experts may add any proprietary andnon-proprietary templates using any template designer tool withoutlimiting the invention.

As stated above, an expression may be partially composed of propertypaths. A property path refers to the attributes of component productclasses which may appear during a runtime session in the ports of othercomponent product classes (and may themselves contain yet othercomponent subclasses, etc). For example, ports in a configuration suchas

My Printer

My Printer's Power Cord

My Printer's Power Cord's Wattage

. . .

Would be referred to with the following property paths that could bewritten as

[MyPrinter]

[MyPrinter].[Power Cord]

[MyPrinter].[Power Cord].[Wattage]

. . .

Basically a port or attribute may be referred to (in this notation) bythe name of the port or attribute, prefixed by a path that accesses theclass of interest having that port or attribute. In these examples, thebase access path is the port [MyPrinter] which is assumed to refer tosome group of printers.

A base path must always be interpreted with respect to a context definedby some particular product class. How the context is determined will bediscussed further below. If the base path accesses a group of productclasses (such as the value of a port, or a subclass subgroup of a port)then a port (such as [Power Cord] above, which is assumed to be ansubclass of [MyPrinter]) can be referred to by appending the name of theport to the path.

If a path accesses an attribute which is also a port then additionalfacilities exist to allow access to the members of that port, theirmembers, etc. First, attributes of component product classes in the portcan be referred to by further extending the path (as with [Wattage]above, which is an attribute of [Power Cord]).

Second, since in one embodiment, the value of a port is always a groupof component product classes then any subclass can be accessed simply byqualifying the port name with the subclass name. For example:

[MyPrinter]:[HP LaserJet].[PowerCord]

refers to the subclass of power cords of just the HP laser printers.

Third, the individual members of the group can be accessed by appendingthe index of the member. For example,

[MyPrinter]#2.[PowerCord]

refers to the power cord(s) attached to the second printer in the group.

These access paths can be freely combined and extended to any degree(always reading from left to right in this notation). For example,

[MyPrinter]:[HP LaserJet]#2.[Cable]:[Serial]#1

refers to the first serial cable attached to the second HP printer.

In one embodiment, any path which doesn't end by referring to anattribute value refers to a group of component product classes. It canrefer to an empty port, a group with a single member, or a group withmultiple members.

In one embodiment, merely referring to an empty port will not constrainthe port to have any component product classes. That is, a customizableclass rule about [CPU]#1000 may only be effective when the configurationis known to have at least one thousand CPUs. However, if no constrainthas required that the thousandth CPU be present, then this path, byitself, will merely refer to an empty port (a port which does not haveany instances in it just like any other port). Conversely, to cause areferenced component product class to exist, either the quantity of theentire group must be constrained to a sufficiently large positive value,and/or the quantity of the indexed port must be constrained to benon-zero.

In one embodiment, the attributes and ports referred to in a path mustbe attributes or ports that are actually defined in the class hierarchybeing referred to. In order to refer to an attribute or port that isonly defined for a subclass it is necessary to “downcast” the path to asubclass subgroup. In one embodiment, a “downcast” path will thus referto an empty group when no objects of that subclass are present.

In one embodiment, new operators may be defined by assigning anexpression template to an operator property. The name of an operatorproperty may be used as an operator in expressions of any class forwhich that operator is defined. Here, an operator property is inheritedor shadowed by subclasses. In one embodiment, an operator property issimilar to procedures and methods in object-oriented programming. Forexample, a MutuallyRequires operator property may be defined as follows:

op MutuallyRequires (x, y) { req(x,y); req(y,x); }

With this definition, a MutuallyRequires constraint may be convenientlyadded by applying the operator to any two expressions of interest.

A more complex example models a MatchingProperty rule, which constrainsany selections within two given categories to require matching valuesfor some given property:

op MatchingProperty (catA, catB, prop) { int propValue;withParts((catA), req(%1,==(propValue, %1.prop))); withParts((catB),req(%1,==(propValue, %1.prop))); }

Although examples of the operator property have been defined using agiven syntax, an alternative syntax may be used to fulfill the nature ofthe operator property and the invention is not limited to the syntaxdescribed.

In one embodiment, third party scripts may also be used to interface theconfigurator with other software applications. Here, scripts can beassociated with customizable or component product classes and can be setto trigger when certain defined events occur as would customizable classrules, however, the scripts may be used to perform actions outside theconfigurator. In one embodiment, scripts are sequential programs whichare run when certain events occur. For example, when the user selectscertain component products a script may be created to add additionalinformation in the current shopping basket or quote and/or interfacewith other external applications. It should be understood that althoughscripts and customizable class rules are described to perform differenttasks, in alternative embodiments, the customizable class rules placeconstraints and perform sequential actions on both the configurator andother applications.

In one embodiment, configuration experts may design a customizablegraphic user interface (UI) for the object oriented configurator. Thecustomizable UI interfaces to the customizable class hierarchy andallows the configuration expert to customize the presentation ofcomponent products. For example, a configuration expert may model acustomizable UI for a particular product line or customer base. Here,each configuration model has a custom UI class from which the runtimesession will dynamically generate a UI. The following describes a HTMLbased UI class, however, other languages such as JAVA applets, MicrosoftActiveX, and standard XML may also be used to generate the UI.

The UI declarations include three component types (UI classes): Themes,Groups, and Controls.

FIG. 5 illustrates the customizable UI class hierarchy according to oneembodiment of the invention. Here, a customizable product structure 510is associated with a UI theme 515. The UI theme 515 defines theappearance of the customizable product class within the UI. Examples ofthe UI theme 515 presentation styles include: tab style, wizard style,or tree style. These UI theme presentation styles may also haveproperties associated with them such as background color, fonts,multi-lingual text, among others for example. In one embodiment, UItheme 515 properties are stored as name value pairs. However, in oneembodiment, each customizable product structure 510 has exactly one UItheme 515.

The customizable product structure 510 may also be associated with a UIgroup 520. The UI group 520 includes a collection of UI controls 530. Inone embodiment, UI group 520 holds one or more UI controls 530. Forexample, in case of a tab style theme, UI group 520 represents a singleproperty sheet where various component product classes may be definedand sequenced within various grouping orders. In one embodiment,grouping order may be different from the group of component productclasses of port 540 as will be further described below.

A UI control 530 may be associated with a specific UI theme andcustomizable product structure 510. UI controls 530 are UI buildingblocks such as drop downs, radio buttons, and list boxes. These UIcontrols 530 may also be defined with specific properties such as fonts.In one embodiment, UI control 530 reflects the runtime session's statemodel for the individual component product classes that UI control 530have been assigned to. For example, a drop down list control, upon aspecific condition may contain varying data depending on whether thecondition is met.

The UI group 520 may include an attribute 535 or port 540. The attribute535 may include an attribute control 545 or an attribute choice 550. Anattribute control 545 allows the UI to display an attribute in terms ofsimple fields, drop down boxes, radio boxes, and list boxes. Theattribute choice 550 allows for the manner in which the attribute isdisplayed, such as its color.

The UI group 520 may also include one or more ports 540. Here, the port540 may include one or more component products represented in portinstance 565. Port control 570 allows the UI to display the portinstance 565 with drop down boxes, radio boxes, and list boxes.

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of the creation of a UI for usingdefined customizable class structures according to one embodiment of theinvention.

In one embodiment, after designing a customizable class structure,configuration experts have the option to customize the runtime UI forthe newly created design or have a default UI design applied. Thedefault UI design in this embodiment is a tree style. Declaring the UIincludes the following:

In block 610, A UI theme is selected from a set of predefined themes.Control then passes to block 620.

In block 620, UI Theme properties are set. Control then passes to block630.

In block 630, One or more UI groups are added to the newly selected UItheme. Control then passes to block 640.

In block 640, UI controls are assigned from the set of availablecontrols to defined component products. UI control then passes to block650. This block may be by-passed if the UI control does not requireproperty update.

In block 650, the UI controls are assigned properties. Control thenpasses to block 660.

In block 660, The UI controls are added to the UI groups.

In one embodiment, once the defined customizable product classstructures, customizable class rules, and UI classes are designed theymay be stored within one or more data stores. FIG. 7 illustrates a datastore for various components of the configurator according to anembodiment of the invention. The figure includes the CustomizableProduct Class Data Store 710, the Attribute Data Store 720, theComponent Product Class Data Store 730, the Static Attribute Data Store740, the Ports Data Store 750, the Customizable Rules Data Store 760,and the UI Data Store 770.

In one embodiment, the data store represents a relational database wherethe customizable product classes attributes in the Customizable ProductClass Data Store 710 have a one to many relationship to attributes inthe Attribute Data Store 720. The Customizable Product Class Data Store710 stores the customizable product classes and the Attribute Data Store720 stores the attributes defined for a customizable product. As notedabove, in one embodiment, the attributes are defined at the customizableproduct class level, thereby, the Attribute Data Store 720, in FIG. 7,has a relationship to the Customizable Product Class Data Store 710 andnot the Component Product Class Data Store 730.

The Customizable Product Data Store 710 also has a one to manyrelationship between the Component Product Class Data Store 730. TheComponent Product Class Data Store 730 stores the component productclasses and the relationship represents that one or more componentproducts make up the customizable product. In addition, the CustomizableProduct Data Store 710 has a one to one relationship to itself, becausethe customizable product may consist of a customizable product.

The Component Product Class Data Store 730, has a one to manyrelationship to the Static Attribute Data Store 740. The StaticAttribute Data Store 740 stores the static attributes of componentproduct classes that are not viewable to the customizable product classaccording to one embodiment. The Component Product Class Data Store 730,also, has a many to one relationship with the Ports Data Store 750. ThePorts Data Store 750 stores instances of component product classes andrepresents that many of the component products may be stored in thePorts Data Store 750, in one embodiment, to group like class typestogether.

The Component Product Class Data Store 730 has a one to manyrelationship to each customizable class rule stored in the CustomizableClass Rule Data Store 760. Also, Component Product Class Data Store 730has a one to many relationship to the UI Data Store 770, storing thevarious UI types to be defined for each component product defined.

Multiple designs for various types of complex customizable products maybe designed for and stored within the data stores. In addition, variousversions of a single model may also be designed and stored. In oneembodiment, an instance of a customizable product includes its ownunique identity, individual characteristics, and explicit relationshipswith other component products, customizable class rules and UI withinthe customizable product.

In one embodiment, the data store may consist of a database managementsystem, such as a relational database management system or an objectoriented database management system, however, alternative databasemanagement systems that are well known in the art may also be used.

In one embodiment, a single instance of a special class, called thebasket, implicitly exists in every configuration. The basket has asingle special (anonymous) “universal port”, whose class is the rootclass of the model. This universal port contains every class in theconfiguration.

The basket may have other properties as well, such as global attributesof the configuration. In one embodiment, the property paths begins witha $ when referring to the basket. If the $ is followed by the name of anattribute, operator template, or port it refers to a global attribute ofthe entire configuration. For example:

$[TotalPower]

might refer to a resource giving the total amount of power needed by theconfiguration.

Alternatively, if the $ is followed by the name of a class, it refers tothe subgroup of component product of that class in the baskets“universal port”. For example

$[Printers]

refers to the quantity of the entire Category of Printers, while

$[HP LaserJet]

refers to the quantity of just that particular kind.

The basket allows the user to get a configuration started from an emptyinitial state. For example entering a request like

1 QTY_LE $[HP LaserJet]

means that there is at least one HP printer in the configuration.Following this with

$[HP LaserJet]#1.[Aux Paper Tray] QTY_EQ 2

causes that first instance to have exactly two auxiliary paper trays,and so on.

The basket also allows the user to connect previously existing parts.For example if later in the session a CPU is created the printer abovecan be attached by submitting a request like

$[HP LaserJet]#1 GRP_EQ $[CPU]#1.[Printer].

In one embodiment, linked component products provide access to othertypes of information besides products. Links may be defined links tofields in a business component, links to the login name of the user, orlinks to the current system date. For example, links to an external useradministration system may determine whether a specific user may purchasea component product at a specific price. This allows one to write rulesthat are conditioned on business component fields, login names, orsystem dates, among other examples.

After the configuration expert models the customizable product, aconsumer or salesperson may build an instance of a customizable productobject from the object oriented classes described above. Here, thecustomer creates a new customizable product object from the customizableproduct class instance by its unique name. Then, depending on thecomponent product classes selected to the customizable product object,specific customizable class rules are triggered or UI classes displayed.

For example, a consumer may select a computer system (e.g. customizableproduct instance) from a tab style UI that provides a drop down list ofvarious computer systems for sale. Upon selecting a computer system, theconsumer may explore options or make trade-offs by adding componentproducts to the computer system such as, monitors, hard drives, andCD-ROMs, each of which may be displayed within its own UI (e.g. HTMLpage). Upon selecting some component products, the customizable classrules may restrict the addition of specific component products to thecomputer system, as would an experienced sales professional, guide acustomer through highly complex product relationships.

In one embodiment, during the runtime session the customizable productobject is generated and resides in memory. Upon the selection of acomponent product object, a unique ID is assigned to each objectassociating it with the customizable product instance. Also, values arepaired with each attribute of a component product object, where, thetype of value that is associated with the attribute is determined by thedefinition of the attribute assigned during the modeling session. Thenew customizable product instance may then be stored in a data store. Inone embodiment, to receive the stored customizable product object fromthe data store, the associated unique ID is used to iterate over eachcomponent product object, outputting the ID assigned to the componentobject, the object's class and the attribute-value pairs for thatcomponent object.

It should be appreciated that the embodiments described allow greaterfreedom to sales professionals to implement a customizable productconfigurator. Sales professions benefit from the use of an objectoriented class hierarchy, that provides structure from which componentproducts are defined and used without the extensive knowledge ofprocedural programming languages. In this way, sales professionals mayprovide enhanced online sales to potential customers by reducing the lagtime between the modeling of the customizable product configurator andthe runtime instance. In addition, the expert logic, provided by theclass rules, allows the consumer to purchase an optimal customizableproduct, to their specific needs and budget, as if a sales professionalwas present to guide the consumer.

FIG. 8 illustrates a medium or media useful for an embodiment of aprocess to generate a customizable product configurator. Each of theblocks of medium 800 may be implemented separately or in combinationwith other blocks and not all blocks need be implemented. Block 810includes Customizable Product Creation logic which may be used to createa customizable product with defined attributes. Block 820 includesCustomizable Product Assignment Logic that may assign a customizableproduct to a class. Block 830 includes a Component Product AdditionLogic that may add component product subclasses to the customizableproduct class. In this way, the attributes inherit from the customizableproduct class. Block 830 includes a Customizable Rule Addition Logicthat may add rules to the customizable product class, thereby providingconditions to component product addition logic. Block 840 includes aCustomizable UI Mapping Logic that may configure a user interface to thecustomizable product class.

Some portions of the detailed description are presented in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the art to mosteffectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in theart. An algorithm as described here is generally conceived to be a selfconsistent sequence of acts or operations leading to a desired result.The acts are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared and otherwise manipulated. It has provenconvenient at times principally for reasons of common usage to refer tothese signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms,numbers, data or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these in similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussionit is appreciated that throughout the description discussions utilizingterms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or“determining” or “displaying” or the like refer to the action andprocesses of a computer system or similar electronic computing devicethat manipulates and transforms data represented as physical(electronic) quantities within the computer systems registers andmemories into other data similarly represented as physical quantitieswithin the computer system memories or registers or other suchinformation storage transmission or display devices. The presentinvention can be implemented by an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes or it may comprise a machine such as a general purposecomputer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program(such as a collection of instructions for execution by a machine orprocessor for example) stored in the computer. Such a computer programmay be stored in a computer readable storage medium such as but notlimited to any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CDroms and magnetic optical disks, read only memories, random accessmemories, EPROMS, EEPROMS, magnetic or optical cards or any type ofmedia suitable for storing electronic constructions and each coupled toa computer system bus. Each of these media may be coupled to a computersystem bus through use of an appropriate device for reading and orwriting the media in question. Specialty apparatus may include acollection of readily available pieces or an application specificintegrated circuit including a series of logic blocks for example. Theblocks of FIG. 1, 6, or 8 may be suitable for implementation as logicblocks, as may other configurations of the method, system and apparatusdescribed herein.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein or it may prove convenient to construct more specializedapparatus to perform the required method. For example, any of themethods according to the present invention can be implemented in hardwired circuitry by programming a general purpose processor or by anycombination of hardware and software. One of skill in the art willimmediately appreciate that the invention can be practiced with computersystem configuration. Configurations other than those describedincluding hand held devices, multi processor systems, microprocessorbased or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, mini computers,main frame computers and the like. The invention may also be practicedin distributed computing environments or tasks or performed by remoteprocessing devices that are linked through a communications network. Therequired structure for a variety of these systems appear from thedescription above.

The methods of the invention may be implemented using computer software.If written in a programming language conforming to a recognized standardsequences of instructions designed to implement the methods can becompiled for execution on a variety of hardware platforms or machinesand for interface to a variety of operating systems. In addition thepresent invention is not described with reference to any particularprogramming language. It will be appreciated that a variety ofprogramming languages may be used to implement the teachings ofinvention as described herein. Furthermore, it is common in the art tospeak of software in one form or another (for example program procedureapplication etc. . . . ) as taken in action or causing a result. Suchexpressions are merely a shorthand way of saying that execution of thesoftware by a computer causes the processor of the computer to performan action or produce a result.

While the invention has been described in terms of several embodiments,those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is notlimited to the embodiments described. The method and apparatus of theinvention may be practiced with modification and alteration within thespirit and scope of the appended claims. The description is thus to beregarded as illustrative instead of limiting on the invention.

1. A method implemented on a computer, comprising: creating acustomizable user interface (UI), using a processor of the computer,wherein the creating comprises selecting a UI theme from a plurality oftheme templates, using the processor, wherein the UI theme defines anappearance of a customizable product class, the customizable productclass comprises one or more customizable products, and the one or morecustomizable products are available to be purchased, adding one or moreUI groups to the UI theme, using the processor, wherein each UI group ofthe one or more UI groups defines a subclass of the customizable productclass, the subclass defines a component product of one or more componentproducts, the component product is related to a customizable product ofthe one or more customizable products, and the component product isconfigured to be used in customizing the customizable product, assigningone or more UI controls to the subclass, using the processor, andproviding a subclass-specific user interface, using the processor,wherein the subclass-specific user interface is configured to allowcustomization of the customizable product in a user-specified mannerprior to purchase of the customizable product by virtue of beingconfigured to allow selection of the component product using acorresponding UI control of the UI controls, and the corresponding UIcontrol corresponds to the component product.
 2. The method of claim 1wherein the UI theme comprises at least one of a tab style, wizard styleand tree style.
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: setting aset of properties for the UI theme.
 4. The method of claim 3 wherein theset of properties comprises one or more of a background color, font andmulti-lingual text.
 5. The method of claim 3 further comprising: storingeach property from the set as a name value pair.
 6. The method of claim3 wherein each of the groups comprises one or more of the one or more UIcontrols, one or more attributes, or one or more ports.
 7. The method ofclaim 6 wherein each of the attributes comprises at least one of anattribute control and an attribute choice.
 8. The method of claim 6wherein each of the ports comprises at least one of a port control and aport instance.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the one or moreUI controls comprises one of a drop down box, a radio button, and a listbox.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the one or more UIcontrols is associated with at least one property.
 11. The method ofclaim 10 wherein a UI control property is selected from the groupconsisting of a background color, font and multi-lingual text.
 12. Acomputer-readable storage medium containing instructions which, whenexecuted by a processor, cause the processor to perform a methodcomprising: creating a customizable user interface (UI), using theprocessor, wherein the creating comprises selecting a UI theme from aplurality of theme templates, using the processor, wherein the UI themedefines an appearance of a customizable product class, the customizableproduct class comprises one or more customizable products, and the oneor more customizable products are available to be purchased, adding oneor more UI groups to the UI theme, using the processor, wherein each UIgroup of the one or more UI groups defines a subclass of thecustomizable product class, the subclass defines a component product ofone or more component products, the component product is related to acustomizable product of the one or more customizable products, and thecomponent product is configured to be used in customizing thecustomizable product, assigning one or more UI controls to the subclass,using the processor, and providing a subclass-specific user interface,using the processor, wherein the subclass-specific user interface isconfigured to allow customization of the customizable product in auser-specified manner prior to purchase of the customizable product byvirtue of being configured to allow selection of the component productusing a corresponding UI control of the UI controls, and thecorresponding UI control corresponds to the component product.
 13. Thecomputer-readable storage medium of claim 12 wherein the UI themecomprises at least one of a tab style, wizard style and tree style. 14.The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 wherein the UI theme isassociated with a set of properties that comprises one or more of abackground color, font and multi-lingual text.
 15. The computer-readablestorage medium of claim 12 wherein each of the groups comprises one ormore of the one or more UI controls, one or more attributes, or one ormore ports.
 16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 whereineach of the one or more UI controls comprises one of a drop down box, aradio button, and a list box.
 17. A computer system for creating acustomizable user interface (UI), the computer system comprising: acomputer-readable storage medium, wherein the computer-readable storagemedium is configured to store a UI data store, and the UI data store isconfigured to store a plurality of theme templates, and a processorconfigured to execute customizable UI mapping logic, wherein thecustomizable UI mapping logic is configured to select a UI theme from aplurality of theme templates, wherein the UI theme defines an appearanceof a customizable product class, the customizable product classcomprises one or more customizable products, and the one or morecustomizable products are available to be purchased, add one or more UIgroups to the UI theme, using the processor, wherein each UI group ofthe one or more UI groups defines a subclass of the customizable productclass, the subclass defines a component product of one or more componentproducts, the component product is related to a customizable product ofthe one or more customizable products, and the component product isconfigured to be used in customizing the customizable product, assignone or more UI controls to the subclass, using the processor, andprovide a subclass-specific user interface, using the processor, whereinthe subclass-specific user interface is configured to allowcustomization of the customizable product in a user-specified mannerprior to purchase of the customizable product by virtue of beingconfigured to allow selection of the component product using acorresponding UI control of the UI controls, and the corresponding UIcontrol corresponds to the component product.
 18. The computer system ofclaim 17 wherein the UI theme comprises at least one of a tab style,wizard style and tree style.
 19. The computer system of claim 17 whereinthe UI theme is associated with a set of properties comprising one ormore of a background color, font and multi-lingual text.
 20. Thecomputer system of claim 17 wherein each of the groups comprises one ormore of the one or more UI controls, one or more attributes, or one ormore ports.